κριτής
judge
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Nominative-case word in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G2923 appears in the Book of Luke — 5 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Greek form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Greek New Testament; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences of this word are not indexed here.
Luke
- Luke 11:19 κριταὶ n nom pl masc But if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore will they be your judges.
- Luke 12:14 κριτὴν n acc sg masc But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?"
- Luke 12:58 κριτήν κριτής n acc sg masc n nom sg masc For when you are going with your adversary before the magistrate, try diligently on the way to be released from him, lest perhaps he drag you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.
- Luke 18:2 κριτής n nom sg masc saying, "There was a judge in a certain city who didn't fear God, and didn't respect man.
- Luke 18:6 κριτὴς n nom sg masc The Lord said, "Listen to what the unrighteous judge says.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
At its core, κριτης (kritḗs) means “judge.” First canonically at Matthew 5:25, it enters the text early. It appears 17 verses across 6 books of the Greek New Testament, among its uncommon vocabulary. The word gravitates to Luke (29%), then Acts and James. It shares a root with κρινω, ειλικρινης and κριμα. Dig into 17-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2923 catalogs a Greek word from the Greek New Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Greek New Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 17
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 17 distinct verses.
- 6 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 6 of 27 New Testament books.
- #644
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 644 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 17 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the New Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Some books belong to more than one corpus (Luke is in both the Gospels and the Lukan corpus, and so on), so these shares overlap and need not total 100%. Each figure is a share of the word’s 17 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 9 verses · 53%
- Gospels 7 verses · 41%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 4 verses · 24%
- Pauline corpus 1 verse · 6%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 6%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Judge 12×, Judges 4×
- American Standard Version: Judge 11×, Judges 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Judge 15×, Judges 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Judge 15×, Judges 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2923 across 17 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G2923 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G2923 across 19 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2923 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in Thayer's
The 1 sense Thayer's distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- one who passes or arrogates to himself, judgment on anything
Word origin
Derived from κρινω (krínō) (G2919) — to judge.
From G2919 ; a judge (generally or specifically): - judge.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms G2923 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| κριτής kritḗs | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 12:58 | 5 |
| κριτὴς kritḕs | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 5:25 | 5 |
| κριταὶ kritaì | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Matthew 12:27 | 3 |
| κριτὴν kritḕn | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 12:14 | 2 |
| κριτῇ kritē̂ | Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 5:25 | 2 |
| κριτήν kritḗn | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 12:58 | 1 |
| κριτὰς kritàs | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Masculine | Acts 13:20 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2923, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 6 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word κριτης appears 51 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 49 verses in 18 books.
- 51
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 49
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 18 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 18 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Deuteronomy 1:15 κριτής
- Judges 2:16 κριτής
- Ruth 1:1 κριτής
- 1 Samuel 24:16 κριτής
- 2 Samuel 7:11 κριτής
- 2 Kings 23:22 κριτής
- 1 Chronicles 17:10 κριτής
- 2 Chronicles 1:2 κριτής
- Ezra 7:25 κριτής
- Job 9:24 κριτής
- Psalms 7:12 κριτής
- Isaiah 1:26 κριτής
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2923) appears in the Greek Septuagint. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Deuteronomy 1:15 κριτής So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, and captains of fifties, and captains of tens, and officers, according to your tribes.
- Deuteronomy 1:16 κριτής I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear [the causes] between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who is living with him.
- Deuteronomy 16:18 κριτής Judges and officers shall you make you in all your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
- Deuteronomy 17:9 κριτής and you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days: and you shall inquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment.
- Deuteronomy 17:12 κριτής The man who does presumptuously, in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die: and you shall put away the evil from Israel.
- Deuteronomy 19:17 κριτής then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before Yahweh, before the priests and the judges who shall be in those days;
- Deuteronomy 19:18 κριτής and the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother;
- Deuteronomy 21:2 κριτής then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are round about him who is slain:
- Deuteronomy 25:2 κριτής and it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his wickedness, by number.
- Deuteronomy 29:9 κριτής Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
- Deuteronomy 31:28 κριτής Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness against them.
- Judges 2:16 κριτής Yahweh raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who despoiled them.
- Judges 2:17 κριτής Yet they didn't listen to their judges; for they played the prostitute after other gods, and bowed themselves down to them: they turned aside quickly out of the way in which their fathers walked, obeying the commandments of Yahweh; [but] they didn't do so.
- Judges 2:18 κριτής When Yahweh raised them up judges, then Yahweh was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented Yahweh because of their groaning by reason of those who oppressed them and vexed them.
- Judges 2:19 κριτής But it happened, when the judge was dead, that they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down to them; they didn't cease from their doings, nor from their stubborn way.
- Ruth 1:1 κριτής It happened in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.
- 1 Samuel 24:16 κριτής It came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words to Saul, that Saul said, Is this your voice, my son David? Saul lifted up his voice, and wept.
- 2 Samuel 7:11 κριτής and [as] from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel; and I will cause you to rest from all your enemies. Moreover Yahweh tells you that Yahweh will make you a house.
- 2 Samuel 15:4 κριτής Absalom said moreover, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man who has any suit or cause might come to me, and I would do him justice!
- 2 Kings 23:22 κριτής Surely there was not kept such a Passover from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;
- 1 Chronicles 17:10 κριτής and [as] from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel; and I will subdue all your enemies. Moreover I tell you that Yahweh will build you a house.
- 1 Chronicles 23:4 κριτής Of these, twenty-four thousand were to oversee the work of the house of Yahweh; and six thousand were officers and judges;
- 1 Chronicles 28:1 κριτής David assembled all the princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the captains of the companies who served the king by division, and the captains of thousands, and the captains of hundreds, and the rulers over all the substance and possessions of the king and of his sons, with the officers, and the mighty men, even all the mighty men of valor, to Jerusalem.
- 2 Chronicles 1:2 κριτής Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and to the judges, and to every prince in all Israel, the heads of the fathers' [houses].
- 2 Chronicles 19:5 κριτής He set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city,
- 2 Chronicles 19:6 κριτής and said to the judges, Consider what you do: for you don't judge for man, but for Yahweh; and [he is] with you in the judgment.
- 2 Chronicles 26:11 κριτής Moreover Uzziah had an army of fighting men, who went out to war by bands, according to the number of their reckoning made by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the officer, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king's captains.
- 2 Chronicles 34:13 κριτής Also they were over the bearers of burdens, and set forward all who did the work in every manner of service: and of the Levites there were scribes, and officers, and porters.
- Ezra 7:25 κριτής You, Ezra, after the wisdom of your God who is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges, who may judge all the people who are beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God; and teach you him who doesn't know them.
- Ezra 10:14 κριτής Let now our princes be appointed for all the assembly, and let all those who are in our cities who have married foreign women come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges of it, until the fierce wrath of our God be turned from us, until this matter be dispatched.
- Job 9:24 κριτής The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of the judges of it. If not he, then who is it?
- Job 12:17 κριτής He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.
- Job 13:8 κριτής Will you show partiality to him? Will you contend for God?
- Psalms 7:12 κριτής If a man doesn't relent, he will sharpen his sword; He has bent and strung his bow.
- Psalms 49:6 κριτής Those who trust in their wealth, And boast in the multitude of their riches--
- Psalms 67:6 κριτής The earth has yielded its increase. God, even our own God, will bless us.
- Psalms 74:8 κριτής They said in their heart, "We will crush them completely." They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.
- Psalms 140:6 κριτής I said to Yahweh, "You are my God." Listen to the cry of my petitions, Yahweh.
- Psalms 148:11 κριτής Kings of the earth and all peoples; Princes and all judges of the earth;
- Isaiah 1:26 κριτής I will restore your judges as at the first, And your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called 'The city of righteousness, A faithful town.'
- Isaiah 30:18 κριτής Therefore will Yahweh wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy on you: for Yahweh is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
- Isaiah 33:22 κριτής For Yahweh is our judge, Yahweh is our lawgiver, Yahweh is our king; he will save us.
- Isaiah 63:7 κριτής I will make mention of the loving kindnesses of Yahweh, [and] the praises of Yahweh, according to all that Yahweh has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
- Daniel 9:12 κριτής He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky has not been done as has been done on Jerusalem.
- Hosea 7:7 κριτής They are all hot as an oven, And devour their judges. All their kings have fallen. There is no one among them who calls to me.
- Amos 2:3 κριτής And I will cut off the judge from their midst, And will kill all its princes with him," says Yahweh.
- Micah 7:3 κριτής Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; And the powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together.
- Habakkuk 1:3 κριτής Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.
- Zephaniah 3:3 κριτής Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2923) in the Septuagint — not a translation of any one Hebrew word. The store carries no word-level Hebrew↔Greek alignment, so no Hebrew original is asserted here. Counts come from the recovered LXX Strong's tagging — high-frequency vocabulary is well covered, while rare or late forms may be untagged — so they reflect tagged occurrences and may slightly undercount.
